The Many Faces of a Gmail Address
Here’s something you might not know about your email address from Gmail: it can actually be used as an almost unlimited number of unique email address. If that doesn’t make sense, check out these screenshots and see for yourself.
Wait, what?
Gmail doesn’t recognize dots or capitalization in email addresses. This means that if your email address is example@gmail.com, it is the same as ExAmPlE@gmail.com, e.x.a.m.p.l.e@gmail.com, or even e……………………………xample@gmail.com! I did a quick test with 126 dots and it worked. I assume it would work with even more.
Ok. So what?
You might be wondering why this matters and why you would ever use anything but your original email address. It’s actually quite helpfull. It can be used to create unlimited disposable email addresses. If you’ve ever been to a website that you don’t want to reveive spam from after registering, simply sign up with a variation of your address with a particular amount of dots in it. When you’re ready, just make a filter in Gmail to discard or lable all emails incoming to that address.
It is also helpful if you require multiple accounts on a website that would normally only grant you one account with your email address. You could use example@gmail.com for one account and ex.ample@gmail.com for a second and the website is none the wiser! This is helpful when two or more people (a family) share an email address but each member wants a Facebook account or something.
Unfortunately this does not work with domain email hosted with Google Apps. Read the official note by Google here.